Go to bed with Karl

August 2, 2016

…and wake up with Uncle Joe. Here’s more news about the devolution of Venezuela. I wonder if Maduro et alia have come up with a catchy name for this, like China’s Cultural Revolution or Russia’s Five Year Plans.

Caracas (AFP) – Venezuela said private and public companies will be obliged to let their workers be reassigned to grow crops, in a dramatic move in the middle of the country’s crippling economic crisis.

The Labor Ministry announced the measure as part of the economic emergency already in effect; it will require all employers in Venezuela to let the state have their workers “to strengthen production” of food.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government is fighting for its life amid staggering inflation and shortages of everything from food to toilet paper, diapers and shampoo.

Maduro, like his predecessor Hugo Chavez, has increasingly moved the country towards taking over parts of the economy.

Now, Venezuela’s state-led socialist government has said it is ready to take the next big step — giving itself authority to order individuals from one job to another.

It was not immediately clear when the temporary measure will kick in, or for how long workers will be sent to the fields. […]

Regardless of what they may call it, $100 says that the usual privation and misery will be the result.